Past Lives

Past Lives, Korea/USA, 2023, Drama, Romance, 106 min., Director Celine Song.  “Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make…

Complicity

Complicity. Japan, 2018, Drama, 116 min, Director. Kei Chika-ura Chen Liang (Yulai) is a young Chinese man and an illegal immigrant in Japan. He buys and assumes a false identity at considerable cost and is, therefore, more than happy to accept a job offer meant for someone else. In his desperation, he pretends to be…

Shoplifters

Shoplifters. Japan, Drama, 2018, 121 min. Writer-Director, Hirokazu Kore-eda. Kore-eda wrote the screenplay contemplating what makes a family, and inspired by reports on poverty and shoplifting in Japan. On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders is united by fierce loyalty and a penchant for petty theft. When the young son is arrested,…

Enlightenment Guaranteed

Enlightenment Guaranteed – Germany/Japan – 2001 – Comedy – 108 min. Director, Dorris Dörrie. Two brothers want to get their screwed-up lives together by going to Japan for a retreat in a Zen monastery. En route, their midlife crisis turns into a midnight crisis when they get lost in Tokyo’s neon jungle and can’t find…

Water

Water – India – English subtitles – 2006 – Drama – 115 min. Director, Deepa Mehta. The year is 1938, and Mahatma Gandhi’s groundbreaking philosophies are sweeping across India, but 8-year-old Chuyia (Sarala), newly widowed, must go to live with other outcast widows on an ashram. Her presence transforms the ashram as she befriends two…

Fire

Fire, India – English subtitles – Drama – 1996 – 108 min. Director, Deepa Mehta. Banned in India, Fire is the first film to confront lesbianism in a culture adamantly denying such a love could ever exist. “Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi) are two Indian women stuck in loveless marriages. While Sita is…

Gypsy Caravan

Gypsy Caravan, When the Road Bends – USA – 2007 – Documentary – 111 min. Director, Jasmine Dellal. Combining footage from 1999 and 2001 tours, this documentary follows five different gypsy bands as they perform across America. Their music is as diverse as their home countries, from Indian raga tunes to upbeat, fiddle-driven Romanian pieces.…

Aparajito

Aparajito – India – 1956 – English Subtitles – Drama – Black & White – 105 Min. Director, Satyajit Ray. The second part of Satyajit Ray’s famous Apu trilogy, Aparajito picks up where the first film leaves off, with Apu and his family having moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy…

Departures

Departures – Japan – 2008 – English subtitles – Drama/Comedy – 130 min. Director, Yōjiro Takita  A whimsical take on the Japanese funeral industry celebrates finding your own particular place in a world full of surprising opportunities. This very affecting movie about death and letting go is heart-warming, funny, wise, quirky and profound.

Pather Panchali

Pather Panchali – India – 1955 – Drama – 146 min. Director Satyajit Ray. Considered by critics among the greatest movies ever made! A pastoral poem dappled with the play of brilliant images and strong, dark feelings, a luminous revelation of life in a Bengali village. Soundtrack by Ravi Shankhar. Two subsequent films came to…